Beyond Control

chapter Twelve



Dallas knew his day had been too f*cking long when he was surprised to find Lex in his suite.

Granted, they hadn't had much time to settle into a routine. And he'd always made a point of collaring outsiders before, women who could fit into his life when and where he wanted them and disappear without drama when one of them tired of the arrangement. The woman made that call, more often than not--some because they'd gotten what they wanted, and others because they wanted what he could never give.

None of them had been around, day in and day out, underfoot and there to witness the days he was too tired to play conquering barbarian, too tired to do anything but fall back on the bed and wait for his thoughts to settle enough for sleep to come. Most nights, he drank them into silence, which meant an early morning with an aching head and a vicious temper, and the women who wanted the fantasy of kneeling for the ruthless Dallas O'Kane didn't want Declan groaning about his throbbing temples.

Christ, he should have thought about that before slapping that collar around Lex's throat. He was too exhausted to take off his own boots, and there she sat, curled up on his couch with a book, gorgeous and patient and deserving a hell of a lot more than a man who'd just fall asleep on top of her.

Especially after the last couple days.

She looked up, her brows drawing together as she closed her book. "You look like hell."

"That's where I've been." He kicked the door shut behind him, and damn. Even the four steps to the couch felt like a battle. He dropped beside her with a heavy sigh and stretched out his legs. "Honestly, I expected a hell of a lot more push-back against this. I didn't expect that I'd have to step on half the guy's necks to keep them from charging out tonight to stake their claims on new territory."

"Some of them are hungry. They want to make names for themselves the way Jas and Bren have. And don't forget the money."

He'd bargained hard with the other sector leaders when it came to defining profit, hard enough that the men would have their chance to get wealthy, if they worked for it. "Yeah, but money won't do 'em a f*ckload of good if they get their brains splattered on the walls by moving too fast and being careless."

"Relax." She slipped behind him on the couch and started rubbing his shoulders. "No one's getting splattered, because you're going to make them understand that wisdom is better than speed."

He snorted but closed his eyes as her fingers dug into a knotted muscle. It hurt, the kind of pain that came with relief on its heels. "I have my doubts that some of them will understand, but they'll damn well obey either way."

She worked his muscles harder. "The first option's easier."

"If everyone's thinking on the same level. God love some of the guys, Lex. They're good and they're loyal...but they're not all Jasper or Bren or Mad."

"So, you pair them up with ones who'll stop and think. The buddy system. You've been doing it for years, haven't you?"

"I suppose..." He leaned forward as Lex's hands worked lower. "But I don't want anyone over there at first except the guys I can trust to keep their heads. We need recon. Intel. If I stuck Six in front of a map, do you think she could figure out what was where?"

Lex brushed her lips over the back of his neck. "Doubtful. She'd do a lot more good on the ground."

"You think she could handle that?"

"She wants to be useful. Let her."

Inside knowledge of Trent's operation and what might be lingering in Three could save him time and headaches. And it wasn't like he'd have to feel guilty about sending her--she stuck to Bren like a burr as it was, and no one would get past him to hurt her.

Lex's lips touched his skin again, and Dallas relaxed into the caress. "Nice to have a second brain to figure this shit out when mine gives up."

"You need sleep." She slid her arms around him. "You've been going nonstop for days. You barely rested when we were in Two."

Sleep. It beckoned with a sharpness that only made his growing erection more ridiculous. "I was thinking about it more seriously before you wrapped yourself around me."

Lex climbed off the couch with a short laugh and pulled at his hands. "No sex until you've slept at least half the night. If you wake up in the middle of it and want to f*ck me numb, you be my guest."

"Someone's feeling bossy," he grumbled, but he couldn't sound irritated. There was something f*cking adorable about Lex when she was like this. He'd seen it with Noelle before, the open affection, the teasing...

Too bad it only made him harder.

"And if you can't sleep..." She moved in close, pressing her body to his as she spun him around so he backed up against the edge of the bed. "I know how to fix that, too."

That perked up his mood and his dick. Amused, he sank to the mattress and lifted his arms so she could drag his shirt over his head. "You gonna read me a bedtime story, Lexie?"

"Better." She dropped his shirt, slid to the floor, and reached for the laces on one of his boots.

He grinned and extended his legs to make it easier. "You're gonna read me a dirty one?"

"Or make one up. This story..." His boots hit the floor, one and then the other. "It's about a king and his concubine."

"Does she have to tell him a story every night?"

Lex threw back her head and laughed. "You want me to be your Scheherazade?"

Of course an educated woman out of Sector Two would understand the reference. Dallas hooked his foot behind her leg and tugged her closer. "Could you think of a thousand and one filthy stories about what the king and his concubine get up to?"

Her fingers curled around his belt buckle and pulled it free. "I'll show you instead." She rose, off her knees, and leaned over him. "The first night, she stripped him naked and danced for him."

More than willing to play along, he lifted his hips without looking away from her face. "Watch the goods, love. This king's been hard since you started touching him."

"If you're waiting for me to complain, you'll wait a long damn time." Her eyes glimmered with amusement, but also appreciation. She peeled his pants down his legs and tossed them aside, leaving him nude and ready.

Then she straightened and stared at him.

Grinning, he stared back...and wrapped his fingers around his aching dick. "I'm imagining you dancing," he lied, dragging his fingers up his shaft. Pleasure formed a lazy haze, but he didn't need to imagine her naked. All he had to do was stare at that collar, at her disheveled hair and dark eyes, and know she was here, in his bedroom.

His.

"Mmm." She swiveled her hips in a slow, languorous circle and licked her lips as she grasped the hem of her loose white T-shirt. Tugging it up a few inches flashed the upper lines of her ink, and her tiny, barely there shorts just begged his gaze to follow her endless legs up to her thighs.

Gorgeous. F*cking beautiful, and if he didn't watch how fast he was stroking himself, he'd blow before she got her hands on him. "You don't hurry it up with the stripping and I'm gonna make a new rule. No clothes in my bedroom."

But she was shaking her head before he even finished his sentence. "You like it too much when I take them off." She crossed her arms, dragging the cotton up, over her head.

There was nothing under it but golden skin and soft, firm curves. Lex opened the button on her shorts with one hand, then eased her thumbs beneath the denim and shimmied it down.

"F*ck, Lex." Skin. Skin and ink, his name, and his blood was fire in his veins. His hand clamped tight, and he shuddered. "I don't suppose the concubine blows the king any time soon in this story."

"You've heard this one." She smiled slowly and kicked free of the denim before climbing astride his legs. "When she was naked too, she sucked him, slow and deep, until he couldn't lie still anymore."

Her hands teased up his thighs. She closed her fingers around his, holding his grip securely in place as she bent damn near in half to flick her tongue over the crown of his cock.

"Christ." Sinking both hands into her hair, Dallas sprawled back on the mattress. Impossible not to clench his hands, not to press up in a silent plea. Maybe he should have demanded, should have f*cked up into her mouth and taken control. That was his promise--his dominance for her submission, his careful control for her abdication of responsibility. It was damn near self-indulgent to lie back and let her do all the work.

And he was selfish enough to do it.

"I love looking at you," she whispered. "You're so strong. Solid. A badass fighter with ink and scars, but parts of you are delicate." She feathered a soft touch up the underside of his shaft and swirled her tongue around him again. "Delicious."

Naked words. Unguarded, with none of Lex's trademark sass and prickle, only a breathless warmth that drove him crazy. "Glad you appreciate the taste, love. Feel free to swallow it whole."

"Smartass." She licked him wet, then held his gaze as she slid her lips down around him.

That never got old.

Hazy pleasure made his eyes droop, but he forced them open. He loved the sight of her like this, glistening lips stretched wide around his cock, staring up at him as she took him deeper and deeper, wrapping him in wetness and heat. Never letting him forget that he could stick his dick in all the groupie faces he wanted, but he'd always come crawling back for this. The moment when he wasn't sure which of them was leading their filthy-hot dance.

F*cking Lex was like driving too fast. Exhilarating. Terrifying. And always a heartbeat away from spinning out of control.

A moan vibrated around him. She changed the rhythm, sucking hard as she drew him into her mouth, and licking as she retreated, over and over.

Worries about the gang and Sector Three vanished under a hum of pleasure. Release edged closer, and he slapped it away, gritting his teeth as he hauled her up until his cock popped free of her lips. "What did the king do next?"

She exhaled shakily and eased up his body. "He gave her pleasure." Her hips aligned over his so that her p-ssy lips nestled against his shaft, and she ground down with another moan.

Dallas dragged his hands down her shoulders and up to cup her breasts, toying with her tight nipples. "I think you have it wrong. I think he played with her." He closed his thumb and forefinger around one bud and tugged, giving her a hint of pain to balance the gentle stroking of his other hand. "I think he teased her, and told her to ride his dick and find her own pleasure."

One quick shift of her lower body brought the blunt tip of his erection closer to her p-ssy, almost inside. "I'll f*ck you, Dallas." She rocked her hips, thrusting hard enough to take him into her. "I'll make it good."

His pulse throbbed in his ears as he shifted one hand to her hip. "I'm balls-deep in the hottest woman in any sector. Short of slitting my damn throat, you couldn't make it bad."

"Shh." She braced one hand on his chest and rolled her hips, a slow, sinuous movement that left her gasping. "F*ck, yes."

He ground his teeth together and tried to ignore the silky clasp of her body as she rose and fell. Not easy, when she was clenching and moaning and putting on the kind of show money couldn't buy.

He wanted to savor it. He wanted to remember every time she bit her lip, and the way the flush of pleasure stole down her body. He'd drawn her kicking and screaming to this point before, to the place where all of her masks were gone and she was lost in the feeling of his cock inside her.

All he'd done this time was drop his own mask, and she'd melted all over him like chocolate in the summer sun.

The relentless need for release throbbed at the base of his spine, but he tightened his grip on self-control long enough to slide his thumb over her *.

She shuddered and clenched even tighter around him as her smooth rhythm faltered. "Tell me you feel it." The strained plea gave way to a cry--and another shudder that shook her entire body.

"I feel it," he whispered, giving up the battle for restraint as hopeless. No one could have held on to reason with Lex bouncing on his dick, writhing and moaning and coming all over him.

Dallas snarled and let go, rolling her beneath him in a clumsy move unworthy of his supposed skill. He had to wrench her hips back toward the edge of the bed and push one of her legs up to his shoulder. Half her hair ended up under one palm, pinning her in place as he found his footing and slammed into her. "Feel it. Feel us. F*ck, Lex, feel me."

Her fingernails dug into his lower back as she gripped him just as clumsily and arched her back, her skin hot under his. "Declan!"

His name, stripping him bare. Raw. Tenderness and rage. Pleasure and pain. He couldn't separate them anymore when she said his name, so he claimed her mouth in a rough kiss to keep her from saying it again--to keep himself from begging her to say it again--and f*cked them both into screaming, clenching release.

Lex rode it, clinging to him until her shaking subsided into trembling. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close, brushing a kiss to his temple. Too much of his weight was resting on her body, and he had to move. He had to.

Damned if he wanted to, though, and the legs and arms tangled around him didn't help. "I'm gonna crush you."

"No." Her arms tightened. "I like this."

He chuckled against her ear. "We're hanging half off the bed, woman."

"Good point." She shoved at his shoulders with a laugh. He hauled himself upright and somehow found the energy to drag her along.

It wasn't until they were both collapsed on the bed that he realized the lights were still on. "F*ck. Sector Two is an evil damn place, but I do miss those voice-activated lights right about now."

"You owe me one." She bit his shoulder and slid off the bed. He watched her cross the room, reveling in those last few moments of admiring her flushed skin and vivid ink before the room plunged into darkness.

Moments later, the mattress dipped again, and she crawled up beside him. Hooking an arm around her, he dragged her into his side with a satisfied sigh. "I'll make it up to you, love."

"I know you will."

His mind should have been cluttered. He should have been staring blindly up into the darkness, running through the eventualities. Marshaling his forces. Making plans he'd have to abandon tomorrow, because no one as exhausted as he was should be making decisions, only he never knew how to make the thinking stop.

Fast, dirty sex and a sleepy Lex snuggled at his side seemed to be the secret. He only wanted to work on one plan before giving in to sleep--his plan to talk Lex into exchanging her collar for something a lot more permanent.



Feel it. Feel us. F*ck, Lex--

"So then I decided I didn't care, and something about forgiveness and permission and which is easier, and you are not listening to me at all." Noelle shoved a wooden dresser out of the way with a little grunt of effort, endangering a precariously balanced stack of chairs. "This is ridiculous. I know Dallas is busy, but Jas says the new storerooms have been built for years."

Lex forced her mind back to the task at hand and steadied the swaying chairs. "Sorry, I'm being a dick."

Noelle waved one hand with a little pfft. "You're daydreaming. Not the same thing."

No good answer to that--nothing that wouldn't make her sound like a kid with a crush, anyway. "Furniture for Six, right?"

"Yes. Bren moved her into a room of her own before he left, but it's... Well, sparse is being kind." Noelle's brow furrowed as she studied the dresser. "I tried to talk her into picking out her own furniture, but that made her freeze up. She keeps saying she's fine with what she has, but she's lying. She's just scared to ask for anything."

Somehow, that possibility managed to perplex Dallas as much as Noelle. "She's having trouble believing hard work and loyalty can be enough. She thinks being an O'Kane woman has to mean selling sex, whether you want to or not."

Noelle's frown deepened. "I remember the feeling, but you and Dallas cleared it up pretty fast for me. Is where she's from so much worse than here?"

"I lived in Three for a while, way back before Wilson Trent took over." The early days, not long after the bombing that had crippled the sector. "I got the hell out as fast as I could."

"God." Noelle shivered and leaned against the dresser. "She breaks my heart, Lex. I caught her looking at a couple of the books Jas got me and offered to lend her one, but I don't know if she can even read. No one's ever taught or given her anything. Maybe I wasn't loved, but at least I was fed and educated."

"Shh." Lex caught a lock of Noelle's hair, wrapped it around her finger, and rubbed it soothingly against the other woman's cheek. "That's why Dallas brought her here. What we'll do for her."

Noelle leaned into Lex's hand with a shaky sigh. "That's what I was saying before, about asking forgiveness. I made Jasper let me into the closet where Dallas stores all the tech. He has a ton of broken tablets in there, and I think I can get one working. If it reads the books to her, maybe she can follow along and learn without feeling self-conscious."

"It'll be fine. And if he gives you shit about it, you send him to me, okay?"

"All right." Noelle dropped a kiss to the inside of Lex's wrist before straightening. "Honestly, I think I make her nervous. After the first day, I let Rachel handle her and left her alone. But this is something I can do to help." Her lips twisted wryly. "And I kind of like it. Is that crazy?"

Even Lex's eyes were burning from the dust, and she was used to far less immaculate surroundings than Noelle. "You like helping, or digging around in this junk?"

"It's not all junk." Wiggling between a desk and a dresser, Noelle laid her hand on an intricately carved headboard, the one piece in the immediate area that Lex would have picked out as extremely valuable--under the dirt. "They're so scornful of anything pre-Flare in Eden, but some of this stuff is just breathtaking. It's from a time when things didn't have to be purely functional. They could be art, too."

"Plenty of artisans left in the sectors," Lex observed. "If there's something you want, take it. If you can't find it, Dallas will get it."

Noelle stroked the high post on the headboard, her gaze wistful. "But isn't it a little sad for so many beautiful things to be tossed on top of one another in here? Why does Dallas keep them?"

Because his mother would have kicked his ass for being wasteful, for not clinging to every single resource that came his way--just in case. "Because he might need them someday. If we can't use it ourselves, maybe we can barter with someone who wants it. All this dusty shit is currency."

Nodding thoughtfully, Noelle turned to survey the room. But her gaze was unfocused, and her next words were a whisper. "I'm almost afraid to ask how you really are. You seem happy...but you went back to Two. Was it hard?"

Lex tensed, afraid of the answer that would come if she didn't force herself to choose her words carefully. "It sucked, and I never want to do it again. But I'll have to. It's part of the deal."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Honestly, she'd rather chew glass. But this was Noelle, who cared so much. "I saw my sister. She's happy--I think. I don't know."

Noelle finally turned to look at her, and she saw a hint of understanding there. "It's hard to imagine people you care about being happy in a place that was killing your soul."

"Shit, it wouldn't even be a thing, except..." Lex ran her finger around the fluted edge of a delicate, dusty vase. "How can you tell what's real in a place like that?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe nothing is. But that's what the people in Eden say about the sectors."

"Yeah."

Noelle smiled faintly. "Everyone in Two can't be horrible, can they?"

Lex could still see the way Avery's patron had stroked her hair, the protective way he'd tried to edge between her and the possibility of pain. "No. And there are shitty people here in Four. The real question is whether it's the a*sholes who are in charge, right?"

Noelle pressed herself against Lex's back and wrapped both arms around her waist in a firm hug. "There's an a*shole in charge here, but since the woman sleeping with him has been daydreaming about him all morning, I've decided to forgive him."

Lex's cheeks heated in a fierce blush. "F*ck you."

"Right here, in all the dust?" Noelle's chuckle tickled Lex's neck. "No, thank you. Maybe later, so the boys can watch and be jealous."

Lex turned to face her. "Dallas is...Dallas. Even when he's being insufferable, he's still one of the best people I've ever met. You'd have to be an idiot not to love him at least a little."

"I could love him a little," Noelle agreed. "But I love you more, so I reserve the right to be pissed off at him whenever he upsets you." She made a face. "And to get in screaming fights with Jasper about it, too."

The thought of her getting defensive on Lex's behalf was as adorable as it was unnecessary. "Don't--for Jasper's sake. He'd never get any peace. That's just me and Dallas. Damn near how we've always been."

"So he says," she murmured as her cheeks turned pink. "And don't underestimate him. Jasper can get his own peace when he wants it."

So that's how it was. "Well, then. Feel free to fight with him. Just be sure and invite us next time."

Pink brightened damn near to scarlet as Noelle laughed. "Stop teasing. And stop giving me ideas, or maybe I'll reconsider all the dust."

"No, you won't, because we're on a mission." Lex dragged a length of canvas off a square shape. "She'll need a nightstand. And someplace to keep her clothes."

"And a desk." Noelle pivoted back toward the headboard they'd unearthed. "Maybe a couch and a couple of chairs. And a nice bed. Or is that too fancy? Will she think we're trying to force her to owe us a favor?"

"Probably not." As far as Six was concerned, they could force her to do anything they wanted, anytime--and favors likely weren't high on the list of what she expected them to demand. "But it could embarrass her."

"Okay. Nice quality, but understated." She pointed to a solid mahogany dresser built in plain, clean lines. "Stuff like that, maybe?"

"Perfect."

Noelle grinned and started moving dusty cushions off the piece. "So here's the real question. I bet you and I could move all the furniture on our own...but I do so love watching Jasper lift heavy things. Is that wrong?"

You've created a monster. Dallas's voice, amused and a little hungry, but Lex could hear it like he was standing right beside her.

Noelle had taken to life in Sector Four fast, and it would break her heart to realize the truth about Six. The girl had a hard road ahead of her, assuming she ever learned to trust any of them. "Better idea. We'll have Jas and Bren do the work, and we'll drag Six along to watch with us."

Maybe she had created a monster, because Noelle arched both brows. "No Dallas?"

As if Lex needed the show--or the reminder of what he did to her concentration and self-control. She bumped Noelle's hip with her own. "You're bad. If you want to hear filthy details, all you have to do is ask."

"I always want to hear the filthy details. How else am I supposed to get ideas?"

"You could take him for a ride yourself." Lex mimicked her raised brows and innocent look. "Dallas and Jasper have been known to tag team on occasion."

"Tag team..." Her eyes went even wider. "You mean like Mad and Ace at that party the night before the blackout? Like, both at the same time?"

"Something like that." Judging by her expression, she was trying to imagine it--hard.

After a long moment of consideration that prompted another adorable blush, Noelle wet her lips. Her imagination had expanded, but Lex could still tell when she was struggling to force her vocabulary to keep up. "Maybe they should both f*ck you first so I can watch and decide if it's too much for me." She grinned suddenly. "Or just watch."

"Yeah, good luck sneaking that one past Dallas," Lex muttered, then explained, "He's in possessive-caveman mode at the moment."

Noelle hesitated. "Is that bad? I can't tell if you think that's bad."

Because she hadn't decided herself yet. "Here's the thing about men, honey. Sometimes, they're at their most possessive when they think you might walk. But let 'em settle down a while, they loosen that grip, and everyone's happy. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe. I think Jasper would let another guy touch me, but I don't think that makes him less possessive. It's not about sharing. It's just about getting me off. He'll use whips, cuffs, toys...Ace." Her sudden smile was lazily content and faraway. "He'll do anything if he thinks I want it."

Now who was daydreaming? "Yeah, okay. Eyes on the prize, sunshine. You may love the musty smell of all this dirty old shit, but I'm starting to itch."

"You can go," Noelle said quickly, waving her hand toward the dresser. "I can find stuff that matches that and round up Bren and Jas, now that I know what I'm looking for."

"I'd rather help." It would keep her mind off f*cking Dallas O'Kane.

Literally.





Six



It wasn't until they were standing across from each other, seconds from throwing their first punches, that Six realized she'd missed Bren.

She'd expected to miss things about him. The security he represented, for starters, both physical and mental. Bren had never been gentle with her, not from that first moment, when he'd wrestled her into submission and shoved a gag between her teeth at Dallas's orders. But he hadn't been rough, either, just been blandly impersonal and efficient. The honesty in that detached competence had soothed her in a way none of Dallas's soft-spoken promises of safety ever could.

She'd expected to miss the way men averted their eyes when she tagged along behind Bren. She'd expected to miss knowing that he'd be a silent wall between her and the rest of the gang, with their curious eyes and their friendly, puppy-dog eagerness. She'd even expected to miss these sessions, the chance to burn through her lingering rage and learn at the same time.

She hadn't expected this weird, tight feeling in her chest, and how much worse it got when he smiled.

Hell, she'd missed him. A lot.

One of those smiles curved his lips now. "You're pulling your punches. Afraid you're going to mess up my pretty face?"

He didn't have a pretty face, not like some of the men. Mad and Ace and even Dallas, when he wasn't scowling. Bren's face was rough, all flat, hard lines and crooked angles, like a dozen bar fights had already tried to mess it up but had only made it more appealing.

Appealing. F*ck, she was obsessing over his crooked nose like some soft city idiot. Six tried to summon her usual glower, but it felt wrong, because the corners of her mouth kept fighting to pull up. "Someone beat me to it."

"Pun intended?" He lunged then, grabbing her hand and spinning in an attempt to twist her arm up behind her back. Pivoting with him, she attempted to break his grip by rotating her wrist, but he knew how to press close and kill the leverage she needed. So she kept going, twirling in a dizzy circle as she shifted her balance and freed up one heel to drive toward his ankle.

He caught her leg with his other arm, hooking his elbow under her knee and pulling it high. Pulling her off balance.

Christ, he was fast. Squirming only toppled her back against his chest, and her only play there was the back of her head against his nose.

So she took it.

"F*ck." He released her and stumbled back, his hiss of pain turning into a laugh. "That hurt, sweetheart."

"You should have stopped me," she chided, uncomfortable with the flutter of worry in her stomach. She turned to examine his face, but he was smiling through the thin trickle of blood trailing from one nostril.

"I deserved it," he said simply.

"Yeah, a little." Her skin still prickled with awareness, the heightened sense of focus that always came with a fight. She could feel his phantom warmth at her back, the memory of his chest, pressed tight against her, and she hated how much she missed that. Clenching her fingers, she buried confusion under action and lunged at him.

Not a graceful attack, and he defended easily, spilling her to the mat beneath him. "You have to take time to think," he whispered, his lips against her ear.

The prickling changed to tingles, and she rasped in a hoarse breath. She didn't like being under him--not when it meant she'd lost--but she didn't hate it as much as she should have. The stinging of her pride was balanced by a deeper satisfaction at his skill.

She'd learn from Bren. She'd get better. And, in the meantime, nothing would touch her because he was magnificently dangerous.

She had to swallow twice to make her voice sound natural. "Speed's the only advantage I have. I need to learn to think faster."

"Couldn't hurt." He shifted his weight and rose on his knees. "But you're being hard on yourself. Fighting me isn't really fair."

"That's why I want to do it." She missed more than some vague impression of warmth this time. She missed the solid weight of him, the feeling of being surrounded on all sides. "I need to learn."

"And I'll teach you. You know that, right?"

She wet her lips, unsure what he was asking. There was suddenly no safe place to rest her gaze, not with him still straddling her hips and her own disobedient body beginning to take a keen interest in his. "You are teaching me. It's helping."

He climbed to his feet. "It's not just fighting. It's understanding when you have to, and when you don't."

"I guess. You have weird rules here. Do any of the other women fight at all?"

He brushed that aside with a shake of his head. "I mean who you might have to fight. You're treating all this like an immediate mission goal. Like you're in danger here." A quick nod indicated the cavernous warehouse around them. "Here on the compound."

There was no safe answer to that. The people here were his friends, his brothers. For all the wary respect in their eyes when they watched him, there was also affection. That was as foreign to her as the idea of women having each other's backs because of some crazy devotion to the idea of sisterhood. So she shrugged and stared at his boots. "I guess."

He watched her intently. "Those lessons are important to learn, too."

"I can't--" She clenched her hands until her ragged nails bit into her palms. "He told me it was safe to stop fighting."

"Trent." There was no doubt in Bren's voice, no question.

At least she wouldn't have to say his name. "He didn't lie, not really. It was safe to stop fighting. He just never bothered to tell me how much worse it would be when he got bored of keeping me safe."

Bren closed both hands around hers and tugged her to her feet. "Tomorrow," he whispered. "Same time. We'll fight harder."

No words urging her to trust, or chiding her for not being able to. Just an offer, the only one that could possibly help. Her heart lurched into her throat, and she spent an endless forever standing there, trembling with the urge to lean in. It wouldn't be hard. Just one step. Only one.

If she did, she could steal a little more of that warmth. Maybe he'd wrap his arms around her. She'd seen him hug others, the back-slapping hugs between the men, the softer, lingering hugs for the women. His arms were thick with hard muscles and solid flesh. He'd had them around her enough times in practice, but never like this. Just two people, standing oh so close, trading warmth and comfort and the air between them.

Her heart hammered hard enough to make the room throb with it as she eased his hands apart and stepped between his arms. He stood there for a moment, unmoving, then slid his arms around her with a low sigh.

This was a different hug than the others she'd seen. His arms barely touched her, their strength held in reserve. He was giving her a way out, the chance to retreat, and that was what made her press forward.

His breath stirred her hair, and he rubbed the back of her shoulder gently. "You'll be all right. Someday."

"Someday," she echoed, surprised at her own tone. She almost sounded like she agreed with him.